A golden birthday for a Paralympian

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Former Formula One and CART driver Alex Zanardi - pictured here racing for Williams in the 1999 Belgian Grand Prix - turns 50 today.

Zanardi was born in Bologna, Italy on October 23, 1966 and began racing karts aged 13. He built his own kart from the wheels of a dustbin and pipes from his father Dino's workplace. He joined the Italian Formula 3 series in 1988 and Formula 3000 in 1991, the same year he got first taste of Formula One in a Footwork in a test session at Paul Ricard.

He went on to make three Grand Prix starts for Jordan the same year and three for Minardi in 1992 before getting a full season deal with Lotus for 1994. Unfortunately his year was cut short when he suffered a concussion in practice for the Belgian Grand Prix and missed the remaining four races. He returned to the team in 1995 midseason as a replacement for the injured Pedro Lamy, before opting to move to the US the following year in the open-wheel CART World Series where he clinched back-to-back titles in in 1997 and 1998 with Chip Ganassi Racing.

That saw Zanardi recalled to Formula One in 1999 with Williams but failed to finish in the points all season. He returned to CART in 2000 with Mo Nunn Racing but suffered a horrific clash during a race at EuroSpeedway Lausitz in German which resulted in his losing both legs. Even so, Zanardi continued to race in specially modified cars and competed in the FIA World Touring Car Series from 2005 until 2009. He even had one more outing in a Formula One car, a BMW Sauber fitted with hand controls.

Zanardi later took part in the 2014 Blancpain Sprint Series season, but it's been as a handcyclist in the 2012 and 2016 Paralympics that Zanardi has reached and inspired a whole new generation of fans. He won gold medals in the men's road time trial H4 and the individual H4 road race at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London as well as silver in the mixed team relay H1-4 with Italy; in Rio de Janeiro he won two further gold medals in the H5 category road cycling men's time trial and mixed team relay, as well as silver in the road race.

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.